Tony Abbott's Qantas solution is not really a solution at all

Monday night's two hour cabinet meeting on Qantas, in which we were told every member had spoken, was political artifice.

It was presented - at a triumphant post-cabinet press conference - as the result of a reform-minded government addressing an intractable problem and fixing it.

Yet the only thing Tony Abbott and his ministers really did was tell us what they wanted to do, or worse, what they wanted to be seen to be doing. On the always critical question of how to do it, they were largely silent. The Americans have a term for this: it is called "kicking the can down the road".

Abbott has in effect, achieved little more than clarifying what position his government will put to a hostile Parliament in which opposition is already established.

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Of all ministers involved in the government's confusing circuitous path to the present approach of dumping the foreign ownership limits in the Qantas Sale Act, Treasurer Joe Hockey's position is the most fascinating.

Hockey had led the case for extending a stand-by debt facility to Qantas on the grounds of the airline being a bona fide special case. He of all ministers knew what this meant because he was the one pushing the "end of entitlement" argument, and advocating that governments should not be bailing out struggling businesses.

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His four-point case for making an exception of Qantas a fortnight ago was starkly counterpointed on Monday night by the sheer abruptness of his explanation for the new position.

"Isn't it true, Mr Hockey, that you were actually presenting that [argument], those four conditions because of the political difficulties of changing the Qantas Sale Act, and isn't it therefore the case that what you're presenting today is in fact a Clayton's solution to the problem because you cannot get it through the current Parliament?" he was asked at the press conference.

"Not at all – no. Emphatically no," he protested before resorting (again) to the key message to be hammered that evening: "The best way to help the workers of Qantas and the best way to help Qantas is to get rid of these legislative restrictions on their ability to compete with other airlines."

So what is the prospect of doing that?

Both Labor and the Greens have made their positions clear. Neither will back the lifting of the 49 per cent foreign ownership cap. Neither will support any change that would see maintenance work sent overseas.

That accounts for the current Senate, but what about the newly configured house? Does that offer the hope of clearing the roadblock, as it is likely to do with the carbon and mining tax repeals?

No again. Between Labor, the Greens and the Palmer United Party senators, there is a unity ticket on keeping Qantas Australian owned and operated.

Asked in the Coalition joint partyroom what was the cabinet plan to address this entirely predictable reality, Transport Minister Warren Truss was clear: "There is no plan B" he reportedly told them.